Captivated By Your Love (Blue Hearts #2) by Kennedy Kelly
Contemporary Romance
Released June, 2015
BookTrope

Reviewed by Sheena

She’s fire and he’s Ice, both demanding and both used to getting their way. Put them together and there is one hell of a storm. Two souls drawn together by an unexplainable force, their chemistry is off the charts it sizzles. Some say what they do best is fight, but they know what they do best isn’t in the fight, but the makeup sex that comes after.
Jealousy and impulsive decisions find Abbee now answering to Mrs. Blue. Can the newlyweds find a way to tame themselves and each other long enough to truly allow love to flourish? Or will a jealous ex and pride be too much to handle? Will they be able to stop fighting with each other long enough to fight for each other? Follow along as Abbee Burkhart and Justice Blue find out why everyone says love is worth fighting for.

Favorite Quote: “What the hell do you mean ‘what condom wrapper‘?”

The benefit of catching on to a series after the bandwagon is that you can typically jump right from beloved book one to the next book up to bat in the series sans the agonizing waiting period in between novels.  Imagine my thrill to jump right into Captivated By Your Love immediately after enjoying book one, Right Kind of Love.  Unfortunately, my thrall was short-lived as Blue Hearts two, takes a bad turn as author Kelly casts two petulant children as her protagonists.  Gone are the engaging hero and heroine prototypes of the first book.  Instead meet Abbee and Justice.  Two people who absolutely should never have hooked up.  At least not until they both evolved from their instinctive childlike sandbox bickering and toddler antics.  Both Justice and Abbee were freakishly immature.  Their novel had potential but they are both petulant children and this was a major turn off.  Abbee is constantly in hysterics and Justice has the most immature triggers I could not believe some of the things that set him off.  There was also cheating involved and I hate when my H/h fool around, even if it is on other partners with each other.   Their romance had a dark cloud from the beginning.  Infidelity, duplicity, guilt, unplanned pregnancy, and sprinting when they should have been at walking speeds, they were doomed before they had a chance.  Abbee and Justice were a train wreck.  I did not root for them to have an HEA, I rooted for them to save one another from each other and just end the damn thing.  I could not look away.  I wanted to.  But a pesky compulsion made me stick it out to the end.

There is a reason that even in fiction threesomes are trouble.  Awesome – but trouble.  Especially when you add to the mix a woman with a lunatic for a boyfriend and two hot brothers.  Drawn to one another since meeting in book 1, Abbee and Justice find themselves in a tangle of limbs with his brother Reeve and a busted condom to boot.  Uh-oh does not begin to cover it. They make a series of hasty decisions  (after Abbe breaks up with her douche-lord verbally abusive boyfriend) and wind up hitched and failing miserably at making their love work.  Abbee is hurt in a vicious attack and Justice has his work cut out for him bringing her back to him.  The only thing they do better than fight is make love and the passion between them is undeniable.

I had been waiting all night to be in this position with her, to be buried balls deep inside her warmth.  Changing my angle, I slightly shifted myself and felt my cock rubbing against her inner wall.  It felt so silky smooth, the way my cock glided with ease back and forth.  Her pussy clamped down on my cock and I thought that I might cum, but I kept thrumming in and out of her.  Taking one hand off of her waist, I brought it back and did something I had wanted to do for a long time…

Instead of a romance novel that ends with a cliffhanger (I know, I know) this would be better served as a cautionary tale.  Fools rush in.  Look before you leap!  It is not okay that at 97% both the heroine and the hero have shared sense of regret and loss.  Where are my romance warm fuzzies?  The only true romance came as a tangent when we would get glimpses into Damien and Sydney’s lives.  They are the sole stable relationship in Captivated By Your Love and their strength and love not only outshines Abbee and Justice, but hovers a stark and unforgiving light on just how tortured they are together.  And as if matters could not get any worse, the bane of their dysfunction emerges when they recognize they are not on the same page regarding having children after the tragic loss of their “oops pregnancy.”  They have unprotected sex, fast, furious and often, Justice is in the grips of a baby fever never known to man and Abbe is vehemently against starting a family. So they have more unprotected sex, then have a fight about Justice wanting to make a baby.  Excuse me, logic, please enter stage right!  Abbee was short sighted and thoughtless in this situation and then blasts Justice for not understanding that she does not want to have a baby.  I know, you want to throttle them both right?  I do not respect heroines who willingly have unprotected sex but then hang responsibility around the heroes neck like an albatross.   I do not respect heroes who pout and tantrum when they do not get their way.  He knew he wanted kids, that’s why he was shooting off into her like a fire hydrant every chance he got.  Abbee knows this and yet they still manage to fight about family planning?

I thought again about how I could be pregnant… Sure it would solve Justice and my problems. He would get what he wanted and I was sure I would eventually be happy.  But things were just too traumatic for me right now.  I needed to focus on getting a divorce and Justice out of my life.  If I were pregnant would I need to get a divorce?…I guess time would tell but for now I was ending things once and for all.

These two were perpetually on opposite sides of the fence…

I wanted my baby inside of her and she didn’t want that with me right now.  We are at an impasse. Fuck.

Yes. Fuck indeed. I can take a tumultuous love affair if there is some sort of romantic payoff.  Jerk me around for twenty chapters then bring it home in the end.  Not ideal, but in an angsty tale, I can dig it.  But don’t jerk me around for twenty chapters then give me hope for three and then sandblast the romance to smithereens in the final chapters and then cliff hang me.  The crux is that Kelly is a great writer.  As off-putting as the characters were, Kelly wove some good plot elements in there and the supporting characters are extremely strong.  She did some amazing things in book one and even though this missed the mark for me, the writing itself is aces.  Second in its series, but can stand alone quite well, have at it if you are not into HEA’s and legit romance. Unfortunately, I am not up for Abbee and Justice part deux, aannnd Blue Hearts #3, is just that, Crazy in Love, featuring Abbe and Justice.  Not interested. I assume there will be a real HEA (this time) but I am not up for more of their dysfunction.  However, I am quite interested in learning more about Sebastian, Justice and Damien’s quiet and a little mysterious younger brother.  I am hoping that Book 4, finally features him- the dynamic surrounding his HEA and coming out of his shell- I would return for in earnest.

Grade: C-

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